Birth of space photography: first Hasselblad photograph from space; Tibet from Faith 7, 15-16 May 1963

Vintage chromogenic print on fiber-based paper, printed 1963, numbered "NASA S-63-6430" in red in top margin, with "A KODAK PAPER" watermark on verso (NASA MSC), 20,3 x 25,4 cm

Prior to the introduction of the Hasselblad, NASA lacked a defined photography program. It was not until Walter Schirra, a known camera enthusiast, sought a precision instrument to accompany him on his Mercury-Atlas 8 mission that NASA’s photographic identity began to take shape. Schirra’s experiments on MA-8 (though Schirra mostly captured overexposed photographs during his time in space) paved the way for Gordon Cooper’s use of the same NASA-modified Hasselblad camera in space. Cooper’s longer Mercury-Atlas 9 flight (22 orbits) allowed him to carefully frame his photographs. Gordon Cooper's film was the first by an astronaut to be analyzed and described frame by frame by NASA, in effect launching the agency’s photographic technology department in Houston.
From then on the Hasselblad became the camera equipment of choice for NASA’s space explorers.

This photograph features the lake area of Tibet near the Himalayas mountain range as captured from the Faith 7 capsule by Gordon Cooper with the first NASA-modified Hasselblad 500C camera and its 80mm lens, using GAF anscochrome reversal film.

“I was the first to pass over the Himalayas during daylight hours. I was supposed to be asleep; I had my system all shut down so that I wasn’t doing any activities. But during three hours of my sleep period I was just tweaking a little tweaker on the thruster so I could get my attitude to film the Himalayas.”
Gordon Cooper (Schick and Van Haaften, p. 28)